Early Morning

So it's currently 1.30am.

This is probably the earliest I've ever done this in a day but I'm extremely awake and have things that need to leave my mind so I can actually fall asleep. Things like "how come on The Simpsons, Marge and Homer have distinctive hair/hairlines but then they give birth to three children without?"

As you can see from this, I am 100% exhausted and should not be awake but I got kicked out of my bed and am struggling to fall asleep on the sofa due to large amounts of pain it is causing. We do have a spare room with an extremely comfy bed but my partner is really messy and it's a bit smelly in there right now and I really can't be dealing with that at 1 am. So, here I am.

I saw an old tweet of mine saying "Do you think there is an alternate universe where during Autumn humans fall out of trees and the leaves rake us off the ground?" and it really stemmed a terrible cycle of stupid questions. 

I'd also force my way back into bed but my partner currently has really bad gas and I'd rather put up with physical discomfort than that. It's actually the worst he's ever done. I think his "wasabi" curry has poisoned his bowel. He should definitely stick to making it himself. He really enjoyed learning how to make it himself before and he even told me it was delicious so I'm not too sure why he picked that exact thing off the menu, maybe he just did it because I wanted to leave the house for a while so he got food to accompany being out. 

I had a mental break-through on my essays, most specifically the 2000 word critical commentary on the comic that I made. I decided that instead of structuring it by theories (because we have to say which theories inspired our works and how), I'm not going to structure by topic. So for my comic, there are three (technically) themes: image, text and the two combined as one. This way, I can work through my JUST IMAGE theorists and link it to my piece, then the JUST TEXT, and then to combine the two together where theorists clash (for example Berger actually theorises the production of the comic strip, so this is including both image and text and is highly relevant to my work where Barthes individually talks about image and text as two separate components of media which are relevant in a different manner). 

My main issue with doing my commentary is that Zoe (the tutor) told us not to use the first person. I'm actually amazing at writing essays and avoiding the first person, I've always studied history and have always been directed away from using "I's" and "we's" etc as it's bad practice for a Historical debate (as you support your opinions with facts and therefore reduce the self from the argument). The main issue with the commentary and first person is that the whole point of it is to analyse and critically evaluate why I'VE done what I have in my piece. I think how I'm going to avoid the first person with this is use the word I to do my full first draft, then when proof-reading over it I'll edit any first-person sentences to remove it without sounding silly. For example, if I wrote "I chose this because", I'd probably change it to "this was selected because" or something of the sort. And then upon the next draft (if I can be bothered with that), I can edit the whole thing to have better phrasing. The reason I'm writing about my boring University revelation is because I'll soon pass out with fatigue and wake up knowing I thought of a good idea but not knowing what it was. So here I am keeping a record of it.

My cat is currently staring at my laptop evilly because he wants the lie in the space on my legs so here's where I'll end my now 2 am post. I'll most likely have something else to add later in the day in which there should 80% be an update later on. 

Update 9:15 am:
Didn't really get much sleep, but I'm kind of glad because it means I'll instantly pass out later and not be woken by my cat playing with his toys at stupid times of the night. 

I'm really glad I wrote the previous thing about my commentary because it's really helped me progress on it. It's only early in the morning and I've already worked on it so much so that's great for me. Hopefully, I'll be done quite early today and can do a few bits of revision for my exam to prevent squashing it all into one week. 

Update 12:10 pm:
I decided on changing how I work on my essay today, almost a trial run of how to work. Instead of doing the whole essay and then proof-reading it, and then editing bits out that are too much or adding extra in, I've decided to work on it one paragraph at a time. I did my introduction and then checked for grammar mistakes, changed phrases and edited just that small part before moving on. I then did the same with paragraph one and I've decided this is how I'm going to do all of my essays from now on (obviously not during my exams). It's actually so useful. Thinking about doing a WHOLE essay in one sitting seems a bit messy and really puts people off, but if you think of doing it bit by bit it doesn't look like as much work, and honestly, it's made me keep going. It also means grammar, referencing, phrasing and all that lot are fixed as I go along, so the final proof-read/edit should be a blast. I'm definitely keeping this method of working in mind for when I progress to next year as it's been so helpful, I wish I thought of it at the beginning of the University year!

Update 15:28:
After a couple of food and drink breaks, I can finally say my commentary is complete. The one paragraph at a time idea definitely made this way more possible than if I attempted to just plough through. I'm really glad I thought of it. All 2000 words done. I just have to edit the bibliography and write up my annotated bibliography then I can have the rest of the day to myself. I'll probably end up cuddling up to my beautiful Alani and play some games.